Gasparo Duiffopruggar (1514 – ) was an instrument maker. His originally German family name was also spelled

Tieffenbrucker Tieffenbrucker is a large multigenerational family of luthiers, originally from Bavaria, active in Venice and Padua, Italy from the beginning of the 16th century till around 1630. Several of their 16th- and 17th-century lutes are on display at the L ...

, Tiefenbrugger, Tiefenbrucker, Teufenbrugger, Tuiffenbrugger, Deuffenbrugger, Dieffopruchar, Dieffoprughar, Duyfautbrocard, Duiffopruggar, Duiffoprugcar, Dubrocard, Dieffoprukhar, Diafopruchar, Thiphobrucar, Fraburgadi, his first name also Kaspar, Caspar or Gaspard. Duiffopruggar is believed to have been born near

Füssen Füssen is a town in Bavaria, Germany, in the district of Ostallgäu, situated one kilometre from the Austrian border. The town is known for violin manufacturing and as the closest transportation hub for the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau cast ...

in Bavaria, Germany, and had moved to

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

, France, where he did most of his work, by 1553. He was one of the first to produce the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

in its modern form.Recent discovery (see Pio book) should prove that

Gasparo da Salò Gasparo da Salò (20 May 154214 April 1609) is the name given to Gasparo Bertolotti, one of the earliest violin makers and an expert double bass player. Around 80 of his instruments are known to have survived to the present day: violins (small ...

instruments were exported in those years to Lyon by the Venetian luthier Abramo

, a probable relative (nephew) of Gasparo Duiffopruggar (Tieffenbrucker). Duiffopruggar instruments are rare and tend to be of the

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

family. Most instruments bearing his labels are imagined reproductions of his instruments. The best examples come from the workshop of the Parisian violin-maker,

Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (7 October 1798 – 19 March 1875) was a French luthier, businessman, inventor and winner of many awards. His workshop made over 3,000 instruments. Early life Vuillaume was born in Mirecourt, where his father and gr ...

. They were made for Vuillaume by Honoré Derazey (1794–1883) and sold to the public to supply the demand for older instruments. These instruments can be distinguished from the originals, however, by discrepancies in the labels of the violin, and more importantly, the workmanship and type of the instrument. Because no violin has ever been actually discovered to have been made by Tieffenbrucker, the current belief is that "Duiffopruggar" never actually made any violins, but rather that he made almost only

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...

s and sold different instruments of other makers, and his name was used to sell a brand of commercial instruments made for Vuillaume.

References

Bibliography

* Farga, Franz, ''Violins & Violinists''. Trans. Egon Larson with Bruno Raikin. New York: Frederick A. Prager, 1969. * "The Tieffenbrucker family and its collaborators", ch. XVI in ''Viol and Lute Makers of Venice 1490–1630'' by Stefano Pio (2012), Ed. Venice Research,
Abstract and index

External links

*Encyclopedia Smithsonian

German luthiers 1514 births 1570s deaths German emigrants to France {{Germany-music-bio-stub